Rivers Budget : Governor Wike Fails To Meet Deadline

By Fola James

Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers’ state is one of the state governors in the country to present the 2020 appropriation bill to the state house of assembly late and this will likely delay the passage before the end of the year.

The federal and state governments had promised to pass their budget to meet the December deadline..

The N530bn monetary expenditure is higher compared to last year’s budget of N480bn.

The members of the assembly are currently on holiday and are unlikely to work on the bill until next year, notwithstanding good relationship enjoyed between the executive and legislature, sources in the assembly said.

President Muhamadu Buhari few days ago signed the national budget into law after passage by National Assembly, making it the first time a federal budget will come to effect since the return to democracy in 1999.

Only a few states among the 36 states across the country have passed their budget into law.

But inspite of the seeming delay Governor Wike has assured the people of the state that the budget has been designed with their needs in mind.

The budget when eventually passed will further turn around the fortunes of the state, the governor stated.

According to the governor, the budget tagged Budget of “Reassurance, profound impact for inclusive growth and shared prosperity,” will consolidate on the achiements of his government in the last five years.

Presenting the 2020 budget proposal to the Rivers State House of Assembly, Wike stated that the budget has total recurrent expenditure of N156,659,436569.00, while capital expenditure is N374,153,920,743.00.
The governor said: “The capital expenditure for 2020 is estimated to be N374,153,920,743.00, which constitutes nearly 70% ofthe total budget. The summary of sectoral allocations of the capital expenditure are as follows:
“Administrative sector -15, 061, 008, 000 .00; Economic sector – 136, 444, 523, 766.60; Law and Justice – 2, 400, 000, 000.00; Social sector -138, 558, 553, 322 .35; Special Head – 57, 367,124,462.0 and Loan repayments – 24,322,731,192.00
“The substantial increase in capital over recurrent expenditure, once again reflects and underscores our commitment to direct more resources to the growth and productive sectors of our economy.
“This Administration is poised to fulfill every promise it made to our people. Consequently, various expenditure portfolios have been allocated to all the relevant MDAs to fund capital expenditures and deliver physical and socio-economic infrastructure and development for our people.”
The highpoint of the recurrent expenditure is the allocation of funds for the new minimum wage and the recruitment of new employees.
“The sum of N70,227,748,472.32 is earmarked for salaries and wages; N8,000,000,000.00 for the new minimum wage, while N18,429,375,634.45 is for overheads.
“Also, N5,000,000,000.00 is set aside for new recruitments, N3,000,000,000.00 as counterpart fund for pensions, N900,000,000.00 for death benefits and N33,176,728,931.33 as monthly pensions and gratuities. Government has also provided over N400,000,000.00 as counterpart contributions for donor programmes.”
A closer look at the budget indicates that close to 20 per cent will be exepended on infrastructure, because over N90 bn has been provided for the Ministry of Works to continue to fund the strategic road development programme for 2020, the governor said.